The Maritime and Coastguard Agency is

responsible for all aspects of maritime safety

and response within UK waters and coastline.

Employing some 1100 staff, mainly uniform

Coastguards and marine surveyors, the Agency also

has 3200 volunteer Coastguards who conduct coastline

searches and rescues. Her Majesty’s Coastguard has

existed for almost 200 years and provides one of the

most modern and effective search and rescue services

in the World. The survey and inspection services of

commercial shipping of vessels using UK waters and

vessels on the UK Register ensure that UK waters are

amongst the safest and UK vessels of the very highest

standards.

The Agency has a vision to be a world-class organisationthat is committed to preventing loss of life, continuouslyimproving maritime safety and protecting the marineenvironment: Safer Lives, Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas. In helpingto realise this vision our Executive Board approved anambitious programme of reviews using the EuropeanFoundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence

Model linked to the Better Quality Services (BQS)programme. All major business functions are being reviewedand have resulted in a number of changes aimed at deliveringmore effective and customer-focused services.

Accident PreventionOne of the major challenges we faced was that of

preventing maritime accidents occurring. As an organisationwe provide a 24-hour response service as the real fourthemergency service and regulate commercial shippingactivities to a high standard. However, most accidents occurthrough recreational activities either on the water or aroundthe coast. Despite our best efforts, accident rates have beenrising and we wanted to develop an effective strategy to dealwith this problem.

Our Chief Executive and Board had already stated thataccident prevention was to become a key objective and thatresources would be re-deployed from response work toprevention activities. The purpose of the review was thereforeto identify how this objective might be achieved. We wereconscious of the need to ensure that any proposals weresoundly based and likely to be effective, as any changes werelikely to be long-term.

PSBS and MFSWe wanted to learn from other experiences and at this

stage sought the help of the Public Sector BenchmarkingService. My first impression was that a tough task had beenset – how on earth do you benchmark strategy?! Havingconducted some initial searches, I was put in touch withRafael Orsini, one of the PSBS team of researchers. We hadseveral discussions to explain our problem and the type ofassistance required. Rafael promised to undertake someresearch and get back to me as soon as possible. At that stageI confess I had doubts that the sort of help needed would beforthcoming. My doubts were unfounded because within afew days Rafael provided a number of leads, the mosthelpful being Mark Broderick from the Merseyside FireService (MFS).

At one time, Liverpool had a higher than average numberof deaths and injuries from domestic fires and the MFSintroduced a new fire prevention initiative aimed atreducing domestic deaths and injuries. This was based onconducting free home fire risk assessments to the mostvulnerable domestic occupants, initially the elderly living inthe poorer areas of the City. Fire Crews were used to carryout the assessments. From my discussions with Mark, I feltthere was a lot to learn from the MFS experience andarranged a visit.

Fire and Water –Benchmarking Marine Safety

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Andrew Cherrett, of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), explains how a collaborativebenchmarking exercise with the Merseyside Fire Service (MFS) helped in formulating an improved maritimesafety strategy.

PSBS News Summer 2002

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Andrew Cherrett MBA DipMHead of Quality Management and SystemsMaritime and Coastguard Agency Phone: 02380 329281105 Spring Place Fax: 02380 32971Southampton SO15 1EG Email: Andrew_Cherrett@mcga.gov.uk

SimilaritiesThis visit identified some amazing similarities between the

MFS and the MCA. Both organisations had effectiveemergency responses once a problem had arisen and coulddemonstrate that many lives were saved due to theprofessionalism of their frontline staff. Commercial activitieswere well regulated and inspected, but less attention andresources had been paid to recreational activities and domesticpremises. Both organisations had new chief executives whowanted to tackle accident prevention in a different way to themore traditional means previously employed.

MFS had been extremely successful and had been able toreduce domestic fire deaths and injuries by 20% that led to theinitiative being more widely adopted as ‘Fire Service Direct’.The Service had also faced many of the cultural problems ofpersuading frontline crews of the need to undertake domesticvisits, overcome by clear direction and prioritisation by thethen new Chief Fire Officer.

Lessons LearnedWe learnt a lot from our visit to MFS and advice from

Mark Broderick. Most importantly we were able todemonstrate that another ‘blue light’ service had successfullydealt with a similar problem. The MFS experience influencedour thinking and contributed to the proposals that are nowunder consideration. Of course there are differences, MFSknow where their domestic customers are whereas ourcustomers are often only temporary visitors to the coast.

I am certain that, thanks to work of Rafael Orsini and thePSBS putting us in touch, the MFS have enriched the level ofdiscussion and solutions to what will be a major initiative toreduce leisure maritime accidents. Finally a word of thanks toMark Broderick and the MFS who as a result of our visitgenerously agreed to include some maritime safety advicewithin some of the local newspapers that was primarilyintended to report upon MFS performance and offer safetyadvice. Hopefully this is the start of an ongoing and fruitfulpartnership between Liverpool Coastguard and theMerseyside Fire Service.

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PSBS News Summer 2002

PSBS Host First Community Call

The first of a pilot scheme called Community Calltook place on 18 June 2002, hosted by PSBS. The ideabehind the venture is for people to meet, shareknowledge and exchange information without leavingtheir desks. This innovative facility, which PSBS hasdeveloped with the assistance of BT Conferencing,will, it is hoped, lead to good practices being learnedand adopted by participants. It is also believed that

people would find great benefit from learning from anexperienced and authoritative expert.

The theme of this first Community Call was theBalanced Scorecard, a subject continually raised byPSBS Members. Callers, after providing their namesand an access code, were first given a presentation byJonathan Chocqueel-Mangan, a recognised expert inthe field, who examined the application of theBalanced Scorecard in the public sector. Participantswere then encouraged to engage in a question andanswer session, before a final review and summary ofthe event was provided.

It is hoped the success of this pilot venture will leadto others in the near future. The results and feedbackof this inaugural Community Call will be the subject ofa full article in the next edition of PSBS News.

For more information on the Community Call , contact the PSBS Helpdesk on on 020 8929 0617 oremail: PSBSCom@hmce.gsi.gov.uk